He nodded once, teeth biting down hard on his lip.
“His house,” he began, swearing as a tear slid across his cheek. Skye felt his torment as keenly as if it had been her own, though there was little she could do other than be there, stand with him while he struggled to make sense of this new, unfathomable tragedy.
“I knew it was no longer safe,” he said, his voice low and urgent, the words infused with grief. “I should have insisted that he let me do the work.”
“Did he?” Skye began. “Did the earthquake…?”
Andreas swallowed. A second tear chased after the first.
“Nai,” he said simply, sadly. “Karolos was inside when it happened.” His eyes met Skye’s. “He is dead.”
Forty-three
“I’m so sorry.”
Skye reached for Andreas’s hand, her fingers wrapping around the phone that was still clasped in it. There was a crack in the bottom corner of the screen, his wallpaper image one of two young boys on a beach, smiles wide and hair wet. It could only be him and the brother he’d lost.
Martyn didn’t have any photographs of his late sister, Beatrice. His mother had thrown them out, he’d told her when they’d driven over to his parents’ Richmond house together for the first time; it would be better for all involved if she didn’t mention the subject. A strange way of coping with death, but then, who was she to judge? Grief was perhaps the most unique and singular emotion, more so even than love.
“It is my fault,” Andreas mumbled.
“No,” Skye said, “you mustn’t think like that.”
There was a set of wide stone steps leading up to the second floor of the medical center, and she led him toward them.
“Sit down for a moment, you’re shaking.”
Andreas sat, knees bent and face in hands. Skye crouched in front of him.
“Nobody can ever be blamed for an earthquake,” she began. Andreas wasn’t listening. He talked across her, muttering Greek she couldn’t follow.
“I must go.” He got to his feet. “But will you be able to get back to Ano Meria?”
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll call Dusty or Victoria. I’m sure one of them will drive over here and collect us. If not, I’ll find a taxi. You go.”
He strode away before stopping and turning back to her.
“There are things I must say,” he said. “To you. I—”
“It’s OK.” Skye tried for a smile. “There will be time. Later.”
After he’d gone, she sat down on the steps, watching as dazed-looking tourists filed quietly along the narrow lane. The earthquake had shaken loose a cascade of red petals from a nearby tree, scattering them across the pale gray stones and whitewashed walls like drops of blood. That death had visited this beautiful place felt abhorrent, though, of course, the island was no stranger to tragedy. Skye’s thoughts, as they so often did these days, strayed to the past. To Katerina. She felt a connection to the woman that went beyond the house itself, as if a part of her still lingered. Perhaps it did. There were the letters, the bones, and now—Skye slipped a hand into her bag and withdrew the silver medal—there was something else. A new clue. Who had the Nazi decoration belonged to? And how had it ended up hidden in a hollow space in her wall?
There hadn’t been time to discuss it with Andreas—or even show him. They’d both been too preoccupied with Martyn. Her husband was a different kind of enemy from those Katerina must have encountered, but he was an opponent nonetheless. She’d built him up to giantlike proportions, but in the end, the threat ofhis arrival had turned out to be far more terrifying than the man himself. He hadn’t changed, but she had.
She drew in a steadying breath, warm and peppered with dust, then stood and walked back into the medical center. There was no sign of Martyn and no available seats. Instead, Skye leaned back against the wall, the hairs on her arms rising in the chill of the air-conditioning. When her husband finally emerged, he was on crutches, injured left foot swaddled in a cast.
“I need to find a pharmacy,” he grumbled, hobbling toward her. “They’ve prescribed something for the pain.”
“How bad is it?” she asked.
“Well, I’ve suffered a nondisplaced ankle fracture,” he replied sardonically. “So probably unlikely to be doing any cartwheels. It bloody hurts, if you must know, although I suppose that pleases you.”
“Not at all.”
“Where’s El Greco gone?” he said, huffing in irritation as he attempted to maneuver his bandaged foot through the open door.
“If you mean Andreas,” Skye said, “he had somewhere else to be.”
